Warmer weather affects cognition in MS patients


Gore effect?

Another in the series “Warmer is bad for you”:

Warm weather may hinder cognitive performance in people with multiple sclerosis (MS), according to results of a Kessler Foundation study e-published online ahead of print by Neurology. An accompanying editorial by Meier & Christodoulou, MS and heat: The smoke and the fire, details the study’s unique aspects, ie, longitudinal followup in a cohort with apparently quiescent disease.

Victoria M. Leavitt, Ph.D., research scientist at Kessler Foundation, is principal investigator for the study, which for the first time, shows a link between warm weather and cognition in people with MS. With more research, this information might help guide people with MS in making life decisions and assist their clinicians in choosing clinical treatment. Scientists may also want to consider the effect of warmer weather on cognition when designing and conducting clinical trials. (source)

But warmer is still preferable to the alternative (pictured). Cognitive performance will be pretty close to zero after you’ve frozen to death because you can’t pay your electricity bill.

[Editor’s note: although this article doesn’t relate directly to climate change, and no link is made in the article itself, it was published in Eurekalert’s “Earth Science” feed, and also appeared in Science Daily’s “Climate change” feed, so a link is clearly implied – Simon]

ABC: Climate change to "kill Australians"


We're all gonna die

That’s not the article title any more, but it is the title in the URL (see image here). Let’s scare people by saying they will die if we don’t “tackle climate change”… with a pointless carbon tax that will reduce global temperatures by seven ten thousandths of a degree.

The ABC, or Groupthink Central it it should be known, shamelessly and uncritically regurgitates an AAP/AFP article plugging a biased and one-sided report from the Climate Commission on the effects of climate change and health:

A new report is warning more Australians face dying in heatwaves and catching infectious diseases as a result of climate change.

A Climate Commission report out today, titled The Critical Decade, says climate change-related injury, disease and deaths will continue to grow in decades to come unless sustained action is taken.

The Climate Commission report says climbing temperatures will lead to more natural disasters and changing rainfall patterns, which will have an impact on people’s health as much as on the environment.

It includes a worst-case scenario where deaths from hotter temperatures in Queensland and the Northern Territory could multiply tenfold by 2100.

Alarmist tactic number 94, throw in a worst-case scenario and lo and behold, the news agency pick up on it! Brilliant.

Report co-author Professor Lesley Hughes says even a small rise in temperature can be detrimental to people’s health.

“A small rise in average temperature actually means a fairly large rise in the number of days, for example, over 35 degrees [Celsius] every year,” he said.

“So as average temperatures go up, the number of extremely hot days go up in a disproportionate way. So what we’re concerned about with climate change, amongst other impacts, is the impact on heat waves.” (source)

I seem to recall reading that the Little Ice age was pretty shit for humanity as well. Marc at ABC News Watch has more:

Despite his expertise, surprisingly no work by [Paul] Reiter was cited in the climate commission’s  report on Climate change and health. The commission has presented only one side of a complex argument.The lies of omission are the greatest lies of all. The commission’s report is another example of cargo cult science in action. It is clear that the commission has no intention of fulfilling its charter to Explain the science of climate change and the impacts on Australia. It is purely a political body. I have no doubt the ABC in its coverage of this report will once again fail in their duty to ask the hard questions.

And indeed they have. They regurgitate a press release from an alarmist news agency.